Fox News Guest Wishes Obama Was More Like ‘Respected’ Bush Re Syria

While the restoftheworld acknowledges that the misbegotten invasion of Iraq is hampering President Obama’s ability to get support for a military strike against Syria, Fox News seems determined to make Obama the sole villain – and rewrite history in favor of the George W. Bush administration. I’ve written already about Fox using Syria for a RepublicanRehabbing of Rumsfeld. Last night, it was George W. Bush’s turn.

Visiting the O’Reilly Factor, conservative Nile Gardiner, of the Heritage Foundation, was full of praise for George W. Bush, condemnation of President Obama and claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “walked all over” Obama at the G20 summit this week. Calling the summit “a rather humiliating day” for Obama, Gardiner accused him of having “instituted a policy of appeasement” toward the Russians. “And where has that gotten the United States today?” Gardiner asked rhetorically.

I don’t know where it has gotten us so far, but Gardiner’s assessment seems a bit extreme. The Christian Science Monitor (no liberal rag) wrote about the summit:

Mr. Obama reportedly got strong backing for his insistence on limited military strikes against Mr. Assad’s regime only from leaders of France, Turkey, Canada, and Britain. But even fewer nations appeared to be fully in Russia’s corner: Basically only China, a fellow veto-holding member of the UN Security Council, is prepared to give the Assad regime the benefit of the doubt on its alleged use of poison gas.

…Putin and Mr. Obama met for about 20 minutes on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg summit Friday to discuss Syria, and the vague official press statements that followed that chat suggested only that their “differences remain” and that “talks will continue” between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry.

In other words, it ain’t over yet. But listening to Gardiner, Obama all but waved a white flag of surrender and personally desecrated the hallowed “professionalism” of Bush:

So far his grand international coalition has Barack Obama and Francois Hollande, the socialist French president. Compare that with President Bush’s 40-country-strong coalition.

…President Bush, I think, was a real professional on the world stage. He wasn’t necessarily greatly loved. He was, though, respected by America’s allies.

…The reality is that President Obama looks awfully weak. He looks like an amateur on the world stage. …He just projects sheer weakness, dithering, indecisiveness. …He’s a bit like a French leader, really, and …that’s why he gets on so well with Francois Hollande, …a clueless French president.

What’s next in the Fox News Revisionist History playbook? Blaming Obama for ruining the Iraq war successes? Oh, wait, they’ve already done that.

Showing 8 reactions

On what planet was George W. Bush a “respected” leader? He was and is despised by most of the world as a consequence of his terrible conduct while in office. The rest of the world didn’t “respect” his attempt to support pre-emptive actions and invasions. They were alarmed by his behavior and distrustful of the motives of people like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld.

There was a moment after 9/11 when the USA had the sympathy of the world, but Bush immediately squandered that good will and turned it completely around by attacking and invading without even probable cause to do so.

Obama’s actions as President have been understandably more cautious and inclusive. That’s not a sign of being “weak” or “an amateur”. That’s a sign of trying to work WITH people around the world to find common solutions and a step away from the arrogance and ignorance of the people who surrounded and advised George W. Bush. We should also note that several members of Bush’s cabinet need to be careful when travelling abroad or they face subpoenas and potential prosecution for their conduct. Are we to believe that people around the world wish to prosecute Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld because they “respect” them?

“And most objective people seem to remember that he got a lot of passes until his infamous skit about the non-existent WMDs. God, did that snap people awake.”

Mark my words: It sure as hell snapped me awake Aria — the instant I saw the video footage of that notorious skit which had some super uppity-crust chickenhawk yuppies yukking it up in the foreground, I ran like lightning to to kitchen sink and UPCHUCKEDTHREETIMES!

Gee. It’s just too bad that the US didn’t suffer some massive terrorist strike by Saudi, Yemeni and UAE nationals in 2011 so that Obama could’ve forced the GOP to kowtow under the “you’re either with us or against us” line. And then, Obama would be able to have time to line up his cards and get Kerry go before the UN with a lot of faked intelligence to get a Security Council resolution to launch a massive invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the terror strike with the GOPers having to fall all over themselves trying to outdo each other as to who was offering the President the most help against the terrorist threat.

You know, kind of like George W Bush did a decade ago.

I know the right-wing is incredibly fond of rewriting history (a standard Soviet activity of which, apparently, the right approved so much they chose to emulate it) but that’s only because they can’t exist in the real world. Pan’s Lost Boys of Neverland were more grown-up than most of the folks on the right.

Remember when Chimpy McFlightsuit danced on the aircraft carrier under the “Mission Accomplished” banner? Eight years later, we were still bogged down in an endless war of occupation in Iraq. Over 4,500 American lives lost and $2 Trillion pissed away.

Newt Gingrich pulled this crap on CNN, so did Steve King. And half the Republicans interviewed on MSNBC. The broadcast networks have gotten where they’ll only let on Dem opponents because Reps can’t keep this crap to themselves.

As far as I can trace this back, John Bolton started this crap with his now infamous “shoe on the other foot” rant, where he openly flouted that he hoped the Syria controversy could be used to avenge Bush.

Avenge Bush for what?! No one seriously questioned him in the run-up to Iraq, they were afraid of being labeled as traitors for speaking up. It was so softball that it wasn’t even realistic. And most objective people seem to remember that he got a lot of passes until his infamous skit about the non-existent WMDs. God, did that snap people awake.